IRVINE - At a gaming conference hosted by UC Irvine on Thursday, one game appeared untouchable.

"World of Warcraft," developed by Irvine's Blizzard Entertainment, hit the 5-million-player mark in December. But as part of the massively multiplayer game genre (MMPs), where thousands of people can play the same game simultaneously online, "WoW" is the exception. So, what's next?

"Everyone wants to compete with 'WoW,' but no one predicted 'WoW,'" said Jack Emmert, keynote speaker of UC Irvine's "Massive: The Future of Networked Multiplayer Games" conference.

Game makers need to listen to what players want, which means specializing to target unique users instead of a mass audience, said Emmert, cofounder of MMP "City of Heroes," where players become their own superhero.

Thursday's conference brought together anthropologists, network technicians and gamers who gathered to toss around ideas about what's next for multiplayer games. These sorts of games aren't all about fighting and shooting, but players who are creating their own communities and bonding with other players.

Robin Harper, vice president of community development for Linden Lab, creators of "Second Life," said that in January, "Second Life" had 125,000 players who spent 2million hours in the world that thrives based on the productivity of its residents. Approximately 60,000 hours were spent "making stuff," Harper said.

Celia Pearce, the event's organizer and a researcher at UCI's Institute of Software Research, presented her findings from tracking a group of gamers from "Uru Live," an MMG that shut down after nine months. The players from Uru traveled to other online game worlds, such as "There" and "Second Life." They stuck together, maintaining their looks and building their own Uru community within the new games.

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